A man from Beetham Gardens has been acquitted of murdering a 16-year-old Laventille teenager on his first day of school a little over a decade ago.
Christon “Grimey Dog” Greaves was found not guilty of the offence at the end of his judge-alone trial before High Court Judge Lisa Ramsumair-Hinds, yesterday.
Greaves was accused of murdering Kazim Maxine, of Eastern Quarry, Laventille, on August 27, 2013.
Maxine was attacked by two gunmen as he was leaving the Laventille Technology and Continuing Education Centre after completing his first day of classes.
He attempted to evade the gunmen but collapsed after being shot by one of them. The other gunman stood over him and shot him five times in the head before running away.
The State’s main witness against Greaves was a security guard at the centre, who witnessed the shooting and allegedly recognised him as one of the shooters as she claimed that she previously saw him in Beetham Gardens when she visited her mother’s home.
Other guards at the school provided evidence of the shooting but could not identify the gunmen.
When she entered the witness stand at the Hall of Justice in Port-of-Spain, last month, the witness repeatedly expressed reservations over participating in the case as she claimed that at the time she implicated Greaves she was suffering mental health issues and was contemplating suicide.
During a break from the case, the woman collapsed in a witness waiting room allegedly due to something she drank.
Justice Ramsumair-Hinds made an order under the Mental Health Act for her to be taken to the St Ann’s Psychiatric Hospital for an evaluation.
After the hospital’s director Dr Samuel Shafe testified that her mental health condition would worsen if she had to return to court to complete her evidence, her witness statements given to the police were tendered into evidence in lieu of her testimony.
Although Greaves did not testify in the case, he claimed that he was mistakenly identified by the witness through the cross-examination of the other witnesses by his lawyers Wayne Sturge and Danielle Rampersad.
The case was prosecuted by Charmaine Samuel and Gilliana Guy, of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).